microRNAs will protect the heart from hypertrophy
Mice were saved from heart failure
Pathology of the heart valves or prolonged arterial hypertension often lead to compensatory pathological enlargement of the heart, resulting in heart failure.
Scientists from Germany have discovered two tiny RNA molecules in mice that play a key role in this process. Thanks to this discovery, described in the journal Nature Communications (The miRNA-212/132 family regulates both cardiac hypertrophy and cardiomyocyte autophagy), in the near future it will be possible to develop a technique for the prevention of heart failure in humans.
Researchers from the Hannover Medical School and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen found that two micro-RNA molecules – miR-212 and miR-132 – occur much more frequently in the heart muscle of mice suffering from cardiac hypertrophy than in the heart of healthy mice. mice. To find out what role these micro-RNAs play, scientists bred genetically modified mice with highly elevated levels of these molecules in the heart. "As a result, these rodents rapidly developed hypertrophy of the heart muscle, and their life expectancy did not exceed 3-6 months," says the author of the study, Dr. Kamal Chowdhury.
To clarify the results, the scientists also bred mice completely devoid of miR-212 and miR-132. The size of their hearts turned out to be even smaller than that of healthy mice, but this did not affect their life expectancy in any way. At the same time, even with artificial prolonged expansion of the aorta, which in ordinary mice provokes cardiac hypertrophy, these mice have the same heart size. This prompted the researchers to decide to inject ordinary mice with a substance that blocks miR-132. After that, even under conditions of prolonged stress, no hypertrophy of the heart muscle was observed in the mice.
Scientists hope that inhibitors of these micro-RNAs, alone or in combination with other therapeutic techniques, can become a completely new approach to the treatment and prevention of heart failure in humans. According to experts, 1.8 million people suffer from heart failure in Germany alone. Among the symptoms of this disease are respiratory failure, rapid fatigue and reduced performance.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru27.09.2012